


Lights Up

by Dredfulhapiness



Series: Our Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes To You [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Iron Fam, Iron Family, Irondad, Post-Endgame, Reunions, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23660617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness
Summary: Peter and Harley fixing the time machine was intentional. Peter getting thrown back in time was entirely an accident.In the midst of overpowering grief, Peter gets advice from the person he needs to hear from the most.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Our Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes To You [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1380109
Comments: 24
Kudos: 220





	Lights Up

**Author's Note:**

> A HUGE thank you to @tig-olbiddies on Tumblr for this prompt!

“This is everything that survived?” 

Peter looked into the warehouse with a lump in his throat. He was surrounded by Stark designs. He recognized some of them: some shells of armor, the barest model of a car. Most of it was boxes, though. Stacks and stacks of boxes labelled with different names. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner-- Everyone who had ever lived in Stark Towers. It was apparent that this building hadn’t just recently become a storage unit. Tony had been storing stuff in here at least since Germany.

Rhodey winced. “Uh, no,” He said. He ran his hand along the side of Dum-E. “Nothing survived. Some of this is from his house, but most of it...” Dum-E didn’t jump to life, just remained stagnant. “We rebuilt a lot of shells, and Banner managed to get Friday up and running, but I have to help sort out…” He waved his hand in a sweeping motion. “And no one else is an engineer, so...” 

Peter looked out at the mecha graveyard.

“You want us to fix it,” Harley said. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, his face was red. 

“If you want to,” Rhodey said. “But all we really need is the time machine.” 

Peter followed his gaze to the mammoth machine in the center of the warehouse. It was given a wide berth, at least twenty feet between it and everything surrounding it. It was as tall as it was wide, shaped like a mobius strip. The sight of it made Peter nauseous.

“I thought it would be more car-shaped,” he said to lighten the mood. 

“We have to get the stones back,” Rhodey explained. “But I don’t want to put too much pressure on you. If you guys don’t think you can--”

“We can do it,” Harley said before he could finish.. There was something hungry in one eye-- something terrified in the other. 

“Pete?” Rhodey looked at Peter. Peter nodded, jaw tense. 

“Yeah,” he said, and everyone ignored his voice cracking. “We’ve got it.”

Harley looked away to pick up a weapon. It was a gun of some kind-- long and wide-barrelled, at least six inches across. There was no cylinder or sight. It was the same Mustang-red as the Iron Suits. Harley turned it over in his hands, his face twisted with grief. 

“That was in his garage,” Rhodey said, nodding toward the gun. “Banner thinks it’s a--”

“Potato gun,” Harley raised it up to his eyeline. He mimicked firing it. 

“I was going to say laser of some kind, but what do I know?” Rhodey shoved his hands in his pockets. “Look, if you guys need anything, you have my number. I can be here in an hour. And if you need backup with putting all this together, I can get a team, I just know that…” He cleared his throat. “Tony would trust you two with this.” 

“Do you have the plans?” Harley asked. 

“It’s all in the computers. Ask Friday and she should be able to tell you.” 

“If you guys don’t need anything else--” Rhodes started. 

“We’re fine,” Peter said. “Thank you Colonel.”

Rhodey gave him a strange look, patted him on the shoulder. “Rhodes is fine, kid.” He took one look back at the time machine. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

As he left, Harley and Peter exchanged a tight-lipped look. They nodded. Then, six miles from the lake everyone had chosen to designate as Tony Stark’s final resting place, his prodigies got to work recollecting his genius.

\--

They didn’t usually talk much while they worked on the machine. The entire situation felt far too heavy for banter or friendly conversation. They showed up, spent hours poring through the files, asking Friday questions, staring aimlessly at the tools in front of them and trying again the next morning.

To say Peter felt hopeless would be an understatement. 

Failure meant damning other timelines. He hadn’t been the one to make the promise to return the stones, but he wouldn’t be the one to break it, either.

It didn’t go over his head, though, that this was the first thing that Tony had ever trusted him with. He couldn’t have a suit without a GPS or access to all the features for his webshooters, or go after Adrian Toomes, but when he was the last available option he was allowed to fiddle with space and time. 

He simmered in that thought as he drove up to the warehouse. 

Normally he’d ask Strange to beam him up or he’d let Happy pick give him a ride, but he was staying the weekend at the lake house and he’d woken with anxiety woven tight under his skin, so Peter opted to drive. It helped, sometimes. To have that level of control.

He wasn’t a fan of the warehouse they did most of their work in. It reminded him of when he got trapped in DC. It was concrete and cramped and sterile, even if it was filled to the brim with half-working Stark inventions rather than crates. 

When he pulled into the parking lot, Harley’s truck was already parked in its usual spot. The worn-out Stark Industries bumper sticker greeted him. Peter had thought  _ he  _ was early showing up just after eight in the morning, but when he went inside it was clear that Harley hadn’t just arrived.

“Morning!” He was practically buzzing. His hair was tousled, his eyes had dark circles under him, he wore the same clothes as the day before except, now, he was grinning. 

The air smelled like coffee.

“Uh,” Peter said. “Good morning?” He wiped sleep out of his eye and blinked at Harley. He dropped his backpack on a chair and began rooting through it. “Did you sleep at all last night?” 

“Doesn’t matter. Catch.” 

Something metal nailed Peter in the side of the face. 

“Jeez,” Harley said. “I thought you had speed abilities or whatever.”

“I’m not Sonic.” Peter picked up the device that had bounced off of his head. It looked like a smart watch, down to the canvas-esque strap. The squircle screen was dark, but when Peter touched it it jumped to life. Coordinates flashed across the screen. “A GPS?”

“ _ And  _ a communicator.” Harley pulled his knees in and sat criss-cross on top of the workbench. “That way people can keep in contact across time.” 

“You did this  _ last night?”  _ Peter turned it over in his hand. 

“I’ve had the plans drawn up for a while. I just put it together last night.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Peter fiddled with its settings. He hit the contact button. Something on Harley’s wrist lit up and screeched. Harley poked at it. 

His grin grew wider. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to work.” His voice came through Peter’s watch, layered with proximity, “The one Tony had put together was a solid plan, but I wanted to make it more flexible when it came to actually communicating through time.” 

“So if one of us ended up in 2048--”

“We should still be able to keep in touch.”

“Dude, that’s awesome.” He heard his voice come from Harley’s wrist. “How do we test it?” 

“I set up some auto-responses.” Harley motioned Peter over and held out his own wrist. “We should be mostly good to go today, so if we just send the bracelet through for a minute and have it contact us…”

“And then we just call it back,” Peter finished. “Harley, that’s genius.”

“It’s only genius if it works.” Harley shoved the toolbag against Peter’s chest. With a grunt, Peter steadied it. “Let’s go, I’ve been waiting on you for like an hour and a half.” 

\--

Harley’s good spirits were as motivating as they were unexpected. 

For the first time since they’d started working on the time machine, Peter didn’t feel the weight of the universe on his shoulders. Harley worked on the control panel as Peter finished up the wiring on the base of the machine. Instead of working in silence, Harley was playing music through his phone’s speakers. They had the door to the warehouse open, and if Peter strained he could hear the faint chirp of birds. 

The anxiety he’d felt on the way over had almost faded into the background. 

That is until Peter’s thoughts were interrupted, suddenly, by a rumbling in his chest. He felt it low and deep. He pivoted, head perked up.

“What’s up?” Harley asked around a mouthful of hoagie. 

The feeling faded. Nothing was around them. “Huh,” Peter said. “I guess it’s nothing. I thought I… heard something.” 

“It’s called a forest,” Harley said. “Sometimes things in them make noise.”

They  _ were  _ relatively close to the forest, and considering Peter’s heightened sense hearing, it wasn’t absurd that he’d hear a tree fall or something of the like. Especially if it wasn’t a sound he was used to (he’d learned to tune out the normal sounds of New York: trains, and people, and honking, and sirens). 

“Hey,” Harley said. “Can you come look at this? I think something’s wrong with the buttons.” 

“Yeah, sure.” Peter finished gaffing a wire to the floor then sidled up beside Harley. 

“I push it.” Harley demonstrated by pushing the power button. “And the wrong thing lights up.” Sure enough, what lit up was instead the  _ seven  _ button. “I checked the wiring. It’s all lined up on the circuit board.”

“What does pushing seven do?” Peter poked at it. The keyboard went dark. “Ah. It turns it off.” He poked it again. The machine jumped to life. “Are we satisfied with just having seven be ‘start’ and vice versa?”

Harley raised an eyebrow. “You want to hand Captain America a backwards control board?”

“Wow,” Peter said, putting his hands up defensively. “I didn’t realize you were such a Cap stan.” 

“It’s about professionalism,” Harley said. 

“I didn’t realize you were a professional, either,” Peter muttered under his breath. Harley elbowed him. 

“I’m just saying, you introduced yourself as a  _ junior  _ engineer, I assumed that meant--” He paused.

“What? That I didn’t actually know what I was doing?” Harley crossed his arms over his chest. 

Peter wanted to retort, for the first time in two months, he felt the hair on the back of his neck rising. As if by instinct, he pushed Harley backward, suddenly, away from the control panel. He jumped back himself, onto the floor of the machine. His fingers grasped at the metal, holding himself in place. 

“Wh--” Harley started, lying prone ten feet away, but a low groaning noise silenced him. One of the support beams tipped with a growl. Peter shot a web at it, trying to pin it to the ceiling or send it flying back the other way, but it instead landed on the control panel, right where Peter and Harley had been standing. With a vibrant burst of sparks, the panel was crushed.

Peter started to rise, ready to ask if Harley was okay, but he felt himself pulled.

With a similar burst of light, Peter was tugged away. He felt the motion before he felt the breath leave his lungs. And then came the pain. It felt like every atom of his body was getting torn apart, risized. It was like growing pains and a torn ACL and stab wounds combined. And he would know, he’d felt all of them before. 

He couldn’t get his bearings.

He was falling-- or rising, he couldn’t really tell. All around him was blue. Peter fumbled at his wrist, desperate as he struggled for breath. He slammed his palm on the edge of his webslinger. His mask covered his face. He took a hungry breath in just as he made contact with something solid.

For a moment, he was on all-fours, desperately trying to catch his breath. His head bowed. Every muscle ached. He felt like he’d run twenty marathons in a row. His lungs expanded. Color returned to his vision. He was staring at cracked pavement. He felt unsteady.

“Look Mom! It’s Spider-Man!” 

Peter whipped his head up and felt the world spin. His neck cracked. Across the street, a child (or three-- but he was pretty sure he was seeing triple) was pointing at him, eyes bulging. Peter waved back and let the rest of his suit cover his “never trust an atom” shirt and jeans. He fell back, laid prone in the middle of the sidewalk. 

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. His jaw popped as he spoke. “Karen, text Harley.” 

“What do you want to say?”

“Ask him if he’s alright and then ask him to have Happy come get me. Please.”

Peter let himself take in a few more, heaving breaths before forcing himself up to his feet. He got a few looks, but no one seemed overly fazed by the guy in the red monstrosity. He sighed a breath of relief-- recently, his public appearances ended in a line of questioning that made him feel sick to his stomach. You know, the usual:  _ What comes next, Spider-Man? _

When the world finally stopped spinning around him, Peter stretched, careful to check for any prominent damage. Thankfully, everything worked. 

“Karen, can you remind me to tell Harley that we need to get suits made next?”

“Sure, Peter. And Harley texted back. He asks: Who is this?”

Peter paused. “Who is this?” He muttered. “Really? Karen-- can you text Harley, ‘Not funny. Can you just come get me?’”

When he was sure his arm wasn’t going to rip entirely off his body, he grappled up to the roof of an office building. The action nearly made him scream. Even without there being any real physical damage to his body, being shrunk down smaller than an atom without any sufficient protection had dealt his body a deal of pain. Every muscle felt pulled. 

“Text from Harley: I think you have the wrong number. Sorry.” 

“This really isn’t the time to be joking around,” Peter muttered under his breath. He was about to ask Karen to text Harley back and say just that, when, like the beginning of a movie or a device in a video game, a newspaper skimming across the roof caught his eye. 

He reached out and grabbed it.

**Businessman Adrian Toomes Arrested** , read the headline. According to the paper, it was 2017. 

“Holy shit, it  _ worked,”  _ Peter said to the newspaper. Then, his blood ran cold. “Holy shit,” he said, the realization dawning. “It worked.” 

He felt his chest tighten as reality set in. A broken time machine had sent him back to 2017, before the machine had even been thought of. He had no contact with the future because he hadn’t met Harley yet. Current Harley was just receiving texts from a random 347 number. 

He was effectively stranded. 

“Okay,” he said to himself. “Okay, this is fine. This is fixable. All I have to do is…”

Peter tapped on the screen of his communicator watch, suddenly grateful that Harley had decided to build it today (that day?) of all days. Something sharp stabbed into his finger, and he pulled his hand away with a hiss, waved it to ease the sting. Sucked on it and tasted blood.

The screen was a mess of glass. The inside was all broken parts. It was unusable. A dud. 

“Fuck!” Peter threw his head back. Across the roof, a few pigeons glared at him. He let himself sit down, bury his face in his hands. 

Just when his spirits were starting to feel up, the universe threw him another curveball. 

Peter was the king of curveballs. That didn’t make critical thinking any easier.

He could try to contact Harold Pym, but from what Scott had told him, that wouldn’t go down smoothly. Pym was too private. Too careful. A child showing up at his door begging for incredibly specific help with work that very few people knew about was a good way to get himself (and the other version of him floating around in this timeline) in a lot of trouble. 

Peter wasn’t sure if Strange was in New York yet. He wasn’t sure if calling Ned would equate running into himself, or if Ned could even keep a secret from one Peter for another. He’d trust his Ned with his life, but this wasn’t his Ned, or his life, or his time. 

“It’s fine,” he said to the dead air. “It’s fine. I can figure this out. I could… I could stage a heist! There’s gotta be some kind of science lab around here that I can break into, grab some supplies, fix this thing up no problem.” 

He looked at the broken device on his wrist and his heart sank. 

He could recover from sneaking off into space. He could take The Vulture down without a real suit. He couldn’t travel in time without a time machine. At least, not without doing significant damage.

“You have a call coming in,” Karen said, like an angel. “Should I answer it?”

“Yes!” Peter breathed, relieved. Maybe it was Harley from the future, or Happy, or even May. She would probably know what to do better than he did.

The line clicked. Connected. 

“Hello?” He asked, failing to hide the urgency in his voice. He was too busy trying to fight the need to vomit. 

“You’re late.” 

Peter stopped fidgeting. His hands froze, still wrung together. “Wh-what?” he choked out. He felt his jaw tremble. 

“I said, ‘you’re late.’ Jesus, do you need new speakers in that suit?” 

Peter’s knees went weak. He sat back ungracefully, his hands searching for the pavement beneath him. His suit disappeared. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone. The caller ID almost made him choke. 

“Hello? Peter, did you hang up on me?”

He pressed the phone to his ear. “Mr. Stark?” 

“Did you hit your head? Who else do you ever make plans with?” 

Peter covered the mic and took a long, shuddering breath. His chest hurt, and it wasn’t just because of his fall.

This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right, because Tony Stark was dead-- Peter had watched him die. 

But, Peter realized slowly, he was alive in 2017. 

“Seriously, kid,” Tony said, and he sounded worried about Peter’s silence. “Are you hurt?” 

“No,” Peter said, and he swallowed down the sob he felt working its way up his throat. “I’m fine. I just-- remind me what I’m late for again?” 

“ _ Really?”  _ Tony asked, and his annoyance made Peter smile despite the way his face contorted. 

“It’s been a busy week,” Peter said, well aware that his voice was trembling. He looked down at his wrist, at the broken communicator. 

“We’re supposed to be making adjustments to  _ your  _ suit,” Tony said. “Unless you want me to take it back again--”

“No,” Peter said quickly. “No, I’ll-- I’ll be right there. Just-- Give me half an hour.”

The line went dead and he pulled his phone away from his ear. He opened the “recent calls” menu and stared, dead-eyed, at “Recent call from Tony Stark.”

That was real. He’d just talked to Tony Stark. Now he had to go meet with him. Be in the same room as him. Be the Peter from seven years before. Before space, and death, and the return, and the battle, and. And. 

It had only been two years to Peter, but it felt like a lifetime. 

He had to act cool. Normal. Apologetic for running late. Like he hadn’t seen Tony laid stiff against rubble, half-burned to a crisp. 

Normal. Peter could do that.

\--

When the door to the lab opened, Peter nearly sobbed. 

“It took you long enough,” Stark said, looking up from the hologram Spider-suit he had been staring at. “I don’t like waiting on people I’m doing favors for-- why are you looking at me like that?”

“Oh, God,” Peter breathed. “You’re real.” And he threw himself forward.

The hug wasn’t unlike the hug Tony had given him in the rubble of the Avengers compound. Peter gripped onto him for dear life, buried his face in Tony’s shoulder, even as he felt Tony stiffen, unsure. He put his hands on Peter’s back, patted him awkwardly. 

“That’s enough of that, kid.” Tony peeled himself away, eyed Peter like he was (har har) an insect. An interesting insect, though. One that needed to be dissected. “You feeling alright?”

And Peter wanted to answer like a normal person, but all he could do was look at Tony. Tony Stark was standing in front of him, alive and well.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just… glad to see you.”

Tony gave him a weird look. Then he blinked, cleared his throat, and said, “Uh… Okay, whatever. Let’s just-- let me see your suit, I want to show you something.”

“Actually,” Peter said, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “About that-- I need to work on something else.” 

“Something else?” Tony asked. “What something else could you possibly need to work on?” 

Peter went to grab the communicator off his wrist and pulled his hand back (again) with a hiss. There was still glass sticking out and stuck to the wristband of it. He let the glove of the iron spider suit cover his hand so he could take the communicator off without getting pricked.

“I need to fix this,” he said as vaguely as possible, but when he looked up Tony was staring at his hand, clearly cross.

“Where did you get that suit?” Tony demanded. “Did you take that from the lab?” 

Peter stopped. He looked down at the Iron Spider suit. Right. He wouldn’t get this for another year. 

“Uh,” he said, desperately wracking his brain for a good excuse. He forced a laugh. He could say he found it in a trashcan. That Tony had given it to him for his birthday and did he already forget and haha old man you’re going senile. He could even say that Happy had snuck it to him. Instead Peter said, with a shrug, “I guess now’s a good time to mention that I’m not from 2017?”

Tony tilted his head, blinked a few times. He put a hand on his hip and leaned against the workbench. “Come again?” 

Peter shrugged. “Wibbly wobbly timey wimey… stuff,” he offered pathetically. 

Tony searched his face for traces of a lie. “You time travelled,” he clarified. “ _ You _ ?”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Peter pouted. “It’s not as difficult as you--”

“You’re gonna need to give me way more information than that, kid.” 

“I can’t really… tell you anything.” Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m whacking out your timeline by being here, but I need supplies to fix my communicator--”

“You’re  _ stuck  _ here?” Tony ran his hands back through his hair, bewildered. “How does that happen, Pete?” 

“Faulty architecture,” Peter said. “And I’m not  _ stuck,  _ okay? I just… don’t have a way to get back.” 

“That’s stuck.”

“No, it’s a  _ challenge.”  _ Peter dropped the communicator onto the stainless steel top of the workbench. “All I need to do is fix my communicator and then Har--” Peter’s head perked up. He twisted to look at the lab door. “Friday, who’s coming?” 

“Peter Parker’s on his way up.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “I can’t see me,” He told Tony. “He can’t know I’m here.” 

Peter could hear the other Peter getting closer. He wasn’t surrounded by much cover. A closet that he knew was too full to hide in. The bottom cabinets of a workbench. 

Decisively, he shot a web above his head and yanked down the grate to the air vent. He leapt up and pulled it shut just in time for Tony’s ears to perk up at the sound of footsteps thundering down the hallway.

Through the slats in the vent, Peter watched the door slam open.

Past-Peter didn’t even stop for breath after launching himself into the lab. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Mr. Stark!” He tossed his bag onto a chair, started pulling his hoodie off his shoulders. There was a bruise forming on his cheek. “There was a robbery in Rego Park and it took longer than expected because they had these new kinds of laser guns and I know you don’t want me fighting people with lasers but you were really far away and there were only two of them and-- who else is here?” 

He looked at the lab, head whipping around. His eyebrows knit together. His mouth opened in a small ‘o.’ He started as if someone had touched him.

Peter felt it, too. It was the strongest he’d ever felt his senses. They were telling him someone else was here, but they were telling him someone else  _ like him  _ was here. It felt like an alarm, or ASMR, or someone running their nails down the back of his neck. It was nice, but it was  _ loud.  _ It was the first time Peter’s senses had actually worked in months, and he had a sinking feeling in his gut that it was even stronger for his past self. 

Tony looked around, too, as a formality. “You seeing people, kid?” 

“Huh?” Peter shot his attention back to Tony. He looked startled, like he’d been zoned out. “No, I just…” He shook his head. “It’s nothing. What are we working on today?” 

“We,” Tony said, motioning between them, “aren’t working on anything today?” 

“Huh? But you said--” 

“Well, something came up. I have a meeting.”

“Oh,” Peter said, disappointed. “That’s fine, I can work on the suit by myself.” 

“Sorry, kid.” Tony shook his head. “The meeting’s in here-- which you would know had you answered your phone.” 

Peter’s face went red. “Right, sorry.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I kinda… smashed it the other day?” 

“ _ Another one?”  _ Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “I built a headset into your helmet so this  _ didn’t  _ keep happening?”

“I know,” Peter said. He looked ashamed. “My phone stopped connecting to Bluetooth-- but it’s fine! I have enough saved up for a new one, I’m getting it next week.”

“So, what? I should  _ E-mail _ you?” 

It struck Peter that this interaction wasn’t a memory of his own. His presence had set the day off. A butterfly had flapped its wings.

“Actually?” Peter said. “Yeah, that would probably work best. I would say you could call the home phone but I’m really trying to ease May into this whole Spider-Man thing, so...” 

“‘Ease in’ as in ‘get caught sneaking into your third story apartment in your suit?’”

“It was a rougher landing than I’d intended, sure.” 

Tony pretended to check his watch. “Look, I’m sorry you came all the way here, but I’m running low on time here.”

“Right,” Peter said. “Should I come by another time, or--”

“You can come by when you learn to take care of your things, kid.” Tony crossed the room and held the door open for him. He motioned dramatically. 

“I’ll see you later, Mr. Stark!” Peter called out as he entered the hallway. 

“Yeah, yeah.”

The door closed behind him. Tony rubbed at his temples. 

“Friday,” Tony said to the empty air. “Tell Happy to send the kid a phone.” Then, “You can come out now.”

“He’s still in the hall,” Peter answered. He stuck his head out of the vent. He could still feel the other Peter’s presence, still like a siren in his brain. “I think he’s suspicious.”

“How do you know that?” Tony looked up at him. Peter shrugged, held himself up with his forearms. 

“I would be,” he said. “He could definitely tell that someone else was in here.” 

“What  _ don’t  _ your powers do?” 

“I don’t have echolocation. Oh! You probably shouldn’t--” Peter winced as Tony picked up the communicator and began inspecting it. Tony turned the broken chunk of metal over in his hands. His finger ran over the charging port. He grabbed a cord from the wall. 

“Friday, do me a favor and scan that,” he said. 

“I don’t know that you should have those plans,” Peter said, his arms partially outstretched, partially raised in defeat. 

“Do you want help fixing it or not, kid?”

“I do!” Peter said. “But have you ever seen that episode of Doctor Who where--”

“Believe it or not, I went on dates in high school.” 

“I just mean that altering when time travel is invented, or who invents time travel, or where the plans end up could  _ seriously  _ alter your timeline and I’m supposed to be  _ keeping  _ that from happening, and you’re inputting all this data from the  _ future _ , so…” 

Tony sighed. “You’re not getting back to whenever you came from without any code, Peter.” He leaned back on the workbench. “Look, I’ll just delete the file once we get it working, alright?” 

Peter chewed his lip. His options were either: stay in the past and inevitably mess up this timeline or let Tony help him and  _ probably _ mess up the timeline. He dropped from the vent. 

“Okay,” he said, defeated.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Peter agreed again. “Yeah, okay. Friday, scan it.” 

\--

It was nearly nine-thirty when Tony demanded they stop for dinner. 

He pulled the communicator from Peter’s fingers, ignoring his protests. 

“I’ve been listening to your stomach growl for over an hour,” Tony said. “You need to eat something.” 

Peter rubbed at his eyes. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’m almost finished--”

“Know your limits, kid.” Tony said. “C’mon, what do you want to eat?”

And reluctantly, Peter left the lab and had a sandwich and when Tony asked him, “So what’s life like for Peter Parker whenever you’re from?” he totally didn’t chew until his food was practically liquid just to come up with an answer. 

“Relatively the same,” he lied. 

“Except for the whole time travel thing,” Tony supplied. 

Peter shrugged. “It’s not exactly a hobby of mine. I owed a few favors.”

“So you built a time machine?”

“Re-built,” Peter said, “and I’m not giving you any more information than that.” 

“You’re killing me,” Tony said. “You can’t just tease the fact of time travel and then not elaborate.”

“I can when you’re from the past  _ and  _ a different timeline,” Peter said. 

“Can you at least tell me what classes you’re taking in school?” Tony asked. 

Peter raised an eyebrow. “You care?”

“Well, you’re not letting me talk about the  _ interesting  _ stuff.”

Peter snorted and rolled his eyes. 

“School’s on break right now,” he said. “I’m not in any classes yet.”

He wouldn’t be going back until the fall. Most of the country had decided it would be best to let those who were blipped settle back in before throwing them back into society. When he came back, Peter had  _ felt  _ like he’d taken a calc test two days before, but in reality his calc teacher had retired three years ago.

“So you got a break and decided to build a time machine by yourself?”

“Re-built, and not by myself,” Peter corrected. “Please stop asking about it.”

“Seriously, though, kid--” Tony slid Peter the bag of chips. “What have you been up to?”

There was so much he could say. All the meetings about halting the Accords until society had settled back down, babysitting Morgan as often as he could, the handful of press conferences he’d been coerced into doing where he’d just stood still as the tin man before he was oiled. He could mention the funeral, or Morgan’s upcoming first day of school, or meeting Harley and building an iron suit together, or how he’d found all the new versions of spider-suits that Tony had started for him during the blip.

Except, he couldn’t say any of that. 

So he said, “Stopping felonies, keeping New York from getting destroyed every few weeks. The same as usual. Oh-- Ned got this awesome internship. He’s helping code games. And MJ helped stage this protest in DC. It was awesome they--” and as he talked, he felt himself relax. He felt a little bit more like Peter Parker. He was careful to not give too much away about the future, but he told Tony about the Lego Stark Towers he and Ned had put together, and mentioned May’s new job, and how MJ nearly decked Flash the last time they were all together and it reminded him that life was a little bit closer to normal than he’d realized. 

The world had kept moving, just how Tony had wanted it to.

\-- 

“So how does it happen?” Tony asked into the silence. Peter glanced at him, then looked back down at the piece of metal he was soldering. 

“What?” He asked, his lips curling up at the edges. He snapped the screen onto it. Nothing happened.

“How do I die?” 

“W-what?” Peter sputtered. “What makes you think--”

“No one is ever that happy to see me, kid,” Tony said. It sounded like he was trying to make a joke. Peter didn’t laugh. Tony looked at him, a realization dawning in his eyes. Peter wanted to become invisible. “You’re pretty young, so it must happen soon.” 

Peter was kicking himself.

For a few minutes, he’d tricked himself into believing that this was just a normal day in the lab. He’d felt the way he always had working alongside Tony: confident and composed. But now, Peter was struck with how temporary everything he loved was.

Peter looked at Tony.  _ Really  _ looked at him. This was a different man than he’d seen in his final battle. A different man, maybe, than the one he saw in space. Peter was struck by the difference five years could make. This was the Tony that spent his free time helping Rhodey through physical therapy, the Tony that invited Peter over after school to make his suit as safe as possible, the Tony that had just locked most of his friends in The Raft. 

Tony didn’t know about The Blip, or Thanos, or Morgan. 

And he didn’t know how he died. 

“I can’t--” Peter stared down at the circuit board. He blinked, and he saw Tony leaning against debris, dead. He felt the end of the world at the back of his throat. He felt himself falling into Tony’s arms, fading away piece by piece. His mouth worked uselessly. To tell the truth would be damning this timeline. It would mean a world where none of that had been worth it. “I-I can’t tell you that,” he managed, his voice hoarse. 

The sounds of the lab were getting fainter. The whirring of machinery was dulled and replaced by a ringing in his ears. Peter’s chest felt tight. His throat was closing up. His fingernails clawed into the palms of his hands. He felt like he was dying, like he was watching Tony die, like he was making eye contact with a life-sized Tony Stark mural painted on the side of a bridge.

He buried his face in his hands. He felt like he was being smothered. His heart jackhammered in his chest. 

“-- _ Peter.”  _ Peter snapped his head up. He was still in the lab. Tony’s hand was flat against the table, just inches from Peter’s elbow. “Breathe. Hey-- you’re fine. You’re okay. Just breathe.”

Peter gasped for air, tried to pass the threshold of the weight on his chest. “Sorry,” he managed to squeak out. “I’m sorry. I--”

Tony slid a water bottle across the table. “Don’t apologize. Hey-- Look at me,” He said when Peter averted his gaze. “We’re in the lab, we’re so close to fixing this.” He held the communicator up. “Nothing’s gonna get you here. Everyone’s okay, right?” 

Peter looked at him with wide, watery eyes. He gasped in another breath. His fingers wrapped around the edge of the table, squeezing until the metal groaned and warped beneath them. He pulled his hand away quickly. 

“What do you need?” Tony asked. 

“A second,” Peter gasped out. “I just-- I need a second.” 

Peter closed his eyes and tried to stave off the embarrassment. He could be embarrassed later, once he was back in his own time and it could be considered a worthwhile problem.

“You wanna tell me what that was about?” Tony asked when the dust had settled and Peter could breathe without feeling like Mjolnir was sitting on his chest. 

Peter cradled the water bottle in his hands. He was still shaking, and shaking hurt the already-tender atoms of his body. Time travel didn’t feel worth it-- at least, not without the proper equipment and suits and.

(This wasn’t the first time this had happened since he’d come back. The first time he’d felt this unbridled terror, May had nearly called 911. He’d been unpacking in the kitchen, trying to sort his way back into life, when he’d found the photograph thrown hap-hazardly in a box with his clothes. It was from the car on the way back from the airport. Right after Germany. It was a reluctant selfie, Tony was mid eyeroll. Peter was beaming, still riding the high of having fought Captain America and being in a car with Tony Stark on the same day. 

Peter stared at the picture, and for the first time since Tony’s death, Peter had felt  _ angry.  _ They’d done everything right, and he’d died. They’d done everything right, and he’d died and left Peter alone. After all this, after all the training wheels and the baby monitors and the “you’re not ready yet, kid”s  _ now  _ Peter was expected to get up, and walk it off, and be a hero? He was left with a recommendation letter and a college fund like that was supposed to tell him how to be the person he was supposed to be. That Tony wanted him to be. The kind of hero that toes the line between things Tony wouldn’t do and would do. 

It set up a new metric: Don’t stop being a hero. Don’t die for the universe. How could Peter live up to those standards?

Peter had nightmares before space. They were usually about Ben. The nightmares after coming back, after the battle, were about dying on a planet he didn’t know the name of. They were about standing at a podium, unmasked, and trying to be a leader. They were about finding everyone he knew dead. Sometimes, they were even about people he didn’t know: a blonde girl falling from a bridge, her bones snapping from the tension of his webs. A man he didn’t recognize who gripped Peter’s hand in the back of an ambulance as he died.

They woke him up in cold sweats with the panic stuck firm in his throat. It wasn’t swept easily away by mouthwash, didn’t disappear with a few sips of water. It just sat. Constantly in his throat. 

When May asked him about it, Peter tried to brush it off. Claimed he didn’t remember his dreams when she asked why he woke up screaming. Pretended that this heightened sense of dread wasn’t working his senses to the bone. 

What else was he supposed to say? The only person that Peter had even considered talking about this stuff to had left him. 

That wasn’t fair. 

The only person that Peter had even considered talking about this stuff to had died. 

If he told May even half the stuff he dreamt about, she’d make him stop being Spider-Man. If he tried to talk to a therapist, he was telling another person his identity. 

He’d avoided the suit for weeks. Outside the walls of his apartment, New York was stirring. News networks speculated that he’d died during the fight with Thanos. Why else would their hero have abandoned them at such a crucial moment?

Inside, the walls were closing in. May didn’t push, but he’d walk into his room sometimes and find his suit laid out on the bed, or hung on the towel rack in the bathroom. Peter knew he was facing a choice he couldn’t force himself to make. 

_ Don’t stop being a hero. _

By the time he finally faced the public, they’d formulated so many questions that Peter thought he was drowning in them.

Everywhere he turned, people focused on Tony’s sacrifice. Every time he showed up as Spider-Man, people treated him like he  _ was  _ Tony. What were Spider-Man’s plans moving forward? What was Earth supposed to do now? Everyone was just as lost as Peter but  _ he  _ was supposed to step up as a leader. It made him nauseous. 

Would they expect the same from him when the time came? Would he be able to deliver? Before getting snapped, the possibility of dying had never actually occurred to Peter because why would it? He was young, and healthy, and he healed so fast that he had nothing to lose when he ran headfirst into fights he wasn’t quite equipped for. He always had backup, because Tony was just a call away. 

Who was he supposed to call now?

_ Don’t die for the universe. _ )

Right. He was stalling. 

“Things have just been really rough,” he said. “I don’t know how-- how to do this. Or if I  _ can  _ do this and it’s… it’s just a lot.” He took a sip of the water to distract himself, and to try to wash away the guilt and the doubt that lingered in his mouth. 

“Y’know, kid, I can only think of one Avenger who was sure he could handle it,” Tony said. “And he’s a dick and usually wrong, so I’d say hesitance is a pretty good trait to have.”

If Tony missed Steve, he didn’t let his face give that away. They were both quiet for a few seconds.

“How did you know that you could be Iron Man?” Peter asked. 

Tony shrugged. “No one else could,” he said, only slightly arrogant. “What is it you told me when we met? Something about feeling responsible because you have those powers?” 

“With great power comes great responsibility,” Peter said under his breath. 

“I knew I could be Iron Man when I couldn’t  _ not  _ be Iron Man,” Tony said. “I couldn’t know everything I knew about space and science and sit back and watch life happen.” 

Peter thought about the days he left his suit at home and regretted it. The times he nearly rushed into danger without a suit and someone who didn’t know he was Spider-Man pulled him back. He thought about seeing an alien spaceship on his way back from the MoMA and knowing that, even if there were ten other heroes in the city, he needed to get involved. 

Peter wanted to say that, but he also wanted to say that sometimes being Spider-Man felt like the ultimate sacrifice. He opened his mouth in an attempt to put his feelings into words. Tony watched him, ready. 

The communicator beeped. Startled away from his train of thought, Peter’s hand reached out and grasped it. He poked at the screen that had previously been black.

“Hello?”

“Pete!” Harley sounded relieved. “Fuck, man-- where are you? It’s been, like, fifteen minutes.”

“I’m in the city. Look, I need you to--”

“I’ll grab my keys and come get you--”

“Well, the thing about that is, uh.” Peter swallowed. “I’m not in-- I sorta-kinda… Okay, so the good news is that the machine works.”

“Peter.” 

“Which is great! The bad news is that I need you to fix it again.”

“Pete.” Harley asked again, “Where are you?” 

“It’s not really  _ where--”  _

Peter heard Harley sigh. “ _ When  _ are you?” 

“2017.” Harley was silent for a long time. 

“Fuck.” 

“I know. I know-- but you can fix the machine--”

“It’s crushed to bits, Pete.” 

“Call Doctor Banner,” Peter said. “Or Strange-- can’t he do his time… stuff?” 

No response came.

“Harley?” 

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Could you try to figure it out fast?” Peter asked. “It’ll only be, like, an hour for you but I’d really rather not grow old over here.”

“Give me three hours, tops. Keep your communicator on and on you, it’s how I know where you are.”

“Okay,” Peter said. “Okay. I can do that.”

“And don’t-- don’t go go gadget spider-webs, okay? You already exist in 2017.”

“Yes, I know not to mess with time, thank you.”

“Alright. I’ll get this set up and get back to you.”

“Great,” Peter said. “Thanks.” 

When Peter hung up, Tony was staring at him with an unreadable expression. 

“What?” Peter asked. 

Tony shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “You just seem to have it all figured out.” 

Peter opened his mouth. He wanted to tell Tony that he didn’t, actually. He had nothing figured out. Sometimes he put on his Spider-Suit and felt like he was suffocating. Sometimes he woke up so angry he couldn’t see because he’d never asked for these powers, or these connections, but now he didn’t go a day without someone asking him for a favor they’d normally ask of Tony. Sometimes he woke up so angry at Tony that he felt it vibrating under his skin and he didn’t know how to make it stop. Sometimes he wondered when he was allowed to say that some responsibility was  _ too  _ great and throw in the towel and just be a scrawny kid from Queens. 

But he had a feeling Tony already knew that, so instead he said, “Yeah, I guess I do.” just to see the relief that crossed Tony’s face.

\--

Peter must have fallen asleep on the couch, because he woke to ringing and Tony nudging him. 

For the briefest moment he forgot why he was there. The first thing he thought was  _ May’s going to be worried I spent the night.  _ But then the world came into focus and Tony was holding the communicator out to him wordlessly. 

Peter squinted, mumbled a thank you and pressed at the screen until Harley’s voice came through.

“I think I got it working. You ready?” 

Peter looked at Tony over the top of the watch. He looked tired. The clock said it was five in the morning. Tony raised his coffee mug in a  _ cheers  _ motion. Peter’s chest tightened. 

Peter closed his eyes and he saw destruction. He opened them, and he saw the sacrifice. 

“Yeah,” Peter said, his tongue heavy. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Great-- to come back, just hit that switch on the side of the communicator. I should see you in a second or two.” 

He sat up and combed his hair into place with his fingers. 

Peter swallowed. “See you in a second,” he said. There was a beep as the call ended. 

“I made some adjustments to your suit,” Tony said. “It’ll still be pretty painful to travel, but I added some oxygen in, so you should at least be able to breathe.” 

“Thank you,” Peter said. A pause. He took Tony in, aware that this was the last time he’d ever see him. “Thank you for everything, Tony. Really-- I appreciate it more than you know.”

“Just don’t go around telling people that I help people time travel,” Tony said. “That’s way above my paygrade.”

Peter wanted to laugh, but instead he closed the distance between them and pulled Tony into another hug. This time, Tony didn’t stiffen or pull away, just wrapped his arms around Peter’s shoulders. 

“You got this, kid,” Tony promised him. He patted Peter on the shoulder as they pulled apart. 

“Thanks Mr. Stark,” he said. Peter finalized the coordinates. His suit covered his body and face. His finger hovered over the button that would send him back to his own time. It didn’t tremble. 

“Be safe,” Tony said. “I’ll see you around, Pete.” 

Peter closed his eyes, nodded, and pushed the button. 

It was worse the second time. Peter landed, doubled over and contorted, on the cold metal of the time machine. Every nerve ending felt like it was on fire. His limbs curled in. His head bowed. He grit his teeth and held back a scream. He felt like a dying insect; like a spider spasming in agony after being sprayed with insect repellent. 

And then, gradually, the pain faded. What was once overwhelming felt akin to the hours after an egregious workout. Peter looked up and found Happy and Harley staring down at him, their faces distorted with concern. 

“We need suits,” Peter squeaked out. “This is awful.” 

“You’re not exactly supposed to travel without them,” Harley pointed out. “You alright?”

“Sore,” Peter said. He accepted Happy’s hand when it was offered and pulled himself up. “Really sore, wow.”

“Do you need a doctor?” Happy asked. “I can call in Bruce--”

“I’m fine,” Peter said. He put a hand out to lean on Happy’s shoulder. “Nothing’s physically wrong, I think. My body is just trying to… adjust.”

“Peter, if you’re hurt...” Harley warned.

“I’m okay,” Peter promised. “I know my limits.” He straightened, stretched out his aching limbs. “Let’s just get to work on those suits. We have some timelines to fix.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm incredibly proud of how this fic turned out, so if you feel like it, please don't be afraid to leave kudos or comments! Also feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr @dredfulhapiness I love talking about iron dad/fam. I also accept fic requests if you have anything in mind.
> 
> Title is from Lights Up by Harry Styles
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
